The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn
by TheGirlWithTheQuill
Summary: This story is about a love... The man I loved is... Dead. Sadstuck. Erisol. Based on Moulin Rouge. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello friends! Welcome to this new little story I'm plotted up. This is going to be a side-thing for when I can't think of something for my other fanfictions, so don't expect updates by the dozen. **

**As you all can probably guess, Moulin Rouge Stuck. Themed around EriSol. Because I can. Obviously a few things are changed because of that, but it's the same basic plot with the same songs and all that great stuff. I hope you enjoy my story.**

**A quick reference: italics is music lyrics, bold is type writer (or in this case author's notes) and normal is, well, normal. Reviews make me happy. Homestuck belongs to Hussie and Moulin Rouge to its respective movie peoples who have many fancy names that I'm too lazy to write. Enjoy, my lovelies. **

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**This story…**

_There was a boy_

**Is about love…**

_A very strange, enchanted boy_

**The man I loved**

_They say he wandered very far, very far_

**Is…**

_Over land and sea_

The man stopped, tears brimming in his eyes.

_A little shy and sad of eye_

He silently read over his words, letting them beat and bleed into his memory.

_But very wise was he_

"This story is about a love," he hiccupped, the salty tears spilling over his pale cheeks.

_And then one day_

"The man I loved is…" He trailed off, the only noise in the room being his sobs.

_One magic day, he passed my way_

Another sob escaped the man.

_While we spoke of many things_

He stared down at his hands, fingers hovering ever alert above his typewriter.

_Fools and kings_

He made a promise he had intended to keep.

_This he said to me_

"This story is about a love," he said again. "The man I loved is…" He stopped again.

_The greatest thing you'll ever learn_

**Dead.**

_Is just to love_

"Dead," he choked out, his body shaking again as another wave of emotion tore up his body.

_And be loved in return._


	2. Chapter 2

** The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.**

**The Moulin Rouge. A night club. A dance hall and a bordello. Ruled over by Cronus Ampora. A kingdom of nighttime pleasures where the rich played with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld. The most handsome of all of these was the man who I loved.**

**Eridan. A courtesan. He sold his love to men and women. They called him "The Sparkling Diamond." And he was the star of the Moulin Rouge. **

He stopped typing and gulped. His eyes threatened to spill over again, but he refused to allow himself the relief.

**The man I love is dead.**

**I first came to Paris one year ago. It was the Summer of Love. I knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Cronus Ampora or Eridan. The world had been swept up in a Bohemian revolution, and I had come to be a part of it. On the hill near Paris was the village of Montamartre. It was not as my father had said, a "village of sin" – but the center of the Bohemian world. Musicians! Painters! Writers! They were known as the Children of the Revolution. I had come to live a penniless existence. I had come to write about truth, beauty, freedom and that which I believed in above all things: love!**

**There was one problem. I'd never been in love!**

**Just then, an unconscious Argentinean fell through my roof! **

He had been sitting at his typewriter and waiting for inspiration to hit when the crash came. Jumping, the man turned around and got out of his chair. There, hanging by the foot from a rope that sprouted like a tentacle from the hole in the ceiling, was an unconscious Argentinean.

**He was quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun.**

The door opened. There was a short woman in a long black dress with a yellow sweater over her head. She said, "How do you do? My name is Aradia de Raymond Toulouse-Lautrec Montfa. I'm terribly sorry about all this! We were just upstairs rehearsing a play."

**A play! Something very modern called "Spectacular Spectacular!"**

"And it's set in Switzerland," she said, waving her fingers as her grin grew wider.

**Unfortunately, the unconscious Argentinean suffered from a sickness called Narcolepsy.**

By now she was sitting at the man's desk, talking away about the play. "He's happily fine one moment, unconscious the next!" She seemed way too happy to be talking about a man with some sort of sleeping illness.

The Doctor poked his mohawked head in through the hole in the ceiling. "Is, uh, he okay? How is he?"

Aradia looked up. A new character had joined them, leaning her head in as her black hair fell over one shoulder. "How wonderful now that the narcoleptic Argentinean is now unconscious. And therefore the scenario won't be finished in time to present to the financier tomorrow!"

"Quick, Aradia, I still have to finish the music," said a man in a giant red sweater, worry in his eyes.

"Well, we can just find someone to read the part!" Aradia said confidently.

"Oh, where are we going to find someone to read the part of the young, sensitive Swiss poet goat hearder?" Porrim asked, glaring down at Aradia. Aradia turned to me, the grin ever wide as she said, "I think I'll find one very easily!"


	3. Chapter 3

The room wasn't very clean, and they had to work around the giant hole in the center, but the Bohemian's flat wasn't all bad. In the back was a make-shift stage with an elaborate piano and a backdrop of mountains, with a ladder making up with makeshift Alps. The man wasn't too impressed, but it didn't matter as soon the Bohemians by the name of Aradia, Tavros (The Doctor), Porrim, who was actually the playwright, and Kankri, the man in the red sweater who composed the music, were all over him and getting him into the Argentinean's costume. Once fitted with lederhosen, the man looked down and back up at them.

"I look ridiculous."

"Oh, come on, now, Sollux! You look fine," said Aradia, grinning. "From the top, everyone! Places!"

Quickly the Bohemians moved. Kankri ran to the piano. Porrim was at the front of the stage. The Narcoleptic Argentinean was still in bed, and Tavros had taken his place. Aradia stood in front, singing, "_The hills are animated with the euphonious symphony of descant!_"

Sollux winced a bit, watching as sparks flew from the piano, which he found out was an Absinthesizer.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Kankri eventually yelled.

Porrim nodded. "Oh, stop, stop, stop, stop that insufferable droning, Kankri! It's drowning out my words. Can we please just sick to a little decorative piano?"

**There seemed to be artistic differences over Porrim's lyrics to Kankri's songs.**

Kankri asked, "What if he sings 'The hills are vital intoning the descant?'"

"Uh, no. Um, the hills are… Um…" Tavros tried to interject but his ideas were coming up short.

The Argentinean, who Sollux had learned was named Karkat, jumped up and yelled, "The hills are incarnate with symphonic melodics!" He suddenly went cross-eyed and fell back down onto the bed.

"No," Tavros said.

"The… The hills," Sollux tried to interject, an idea working itself in his mind. He continued to be ignored as the Bohemians continued trying to pitch in ideas. Eventually, Sollux did something he never thought he'd do: sing.

"_The hills are alive with the sound of music,_" he belted, leaning off his ladder. Everyone got quiet. No one moved. No one turned. No one even breathed. He smirked and murmured to himself, "Well, that got your attention."

The Argentinean woke with a start. "'The hills are alive with the sound of music!' I love it!"

"The hills…" the Doctor questioned.

"Are alive…" Aradia muttered.

Singing, Kankri checked out how it fit with the music. "It fits perfectly!" he declared.

Sollux grinned and leaned forward off his ladder, singing, "_With songs they have sung for a thousand years!_"

All the Bohemians gasped. Aradia turned, grinning, "Incadiferous! Porrim, you two should write the show together! It'd be great!"

"I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you correctly," Porrim said, shooting Sollux a glare. He shrugged and sat on his ladder, watching Aradia try to reason with Porrim.

**But Aradia's suggestion that we write the show together was not what Porrim wanted to hear.**

After what seemed like an hour of arguing, Porrim slammed the door shut without a word, leaving the Bohemians and Sollux in the room.

Aradia held up a glass full of a strange green liquid. "Here's to your first job in Paris, Sollux!" She gulped down the glass in on swig, coming back up with a grin on her face. Sollux felt the grin was a big contagious, and couldn't help but grin back.

"Aradia! Ampora will never agree. No offense, but have you ever written something like this before?" Kankri asked.

"No," Sollux said, grin still on his face.

"The boy has talent!" Karkat said, strolled over to him and raising his hands up, one accidently brushing against the fly of Sollux's pants. "I like him!" When he heard Sollux gasp, he drew his hand away. "Nothing funny. I just like talent."

"The hills are alive with the sound of music. Don't you see, Kankri? If we have Sollux write, we can create this truly Bohemian Revolutionary show we've always dreamt of!" Aradia gripped onto his arm, bouncing and shaking with excitement.

"Yes," Kankri agreed, nodding. "But how will we convince Ampora?"

**But Aradia had a plan: Eridan.**

**The would dress me in the Argentinean's best suit and pass me off as a famous English writer. Once Eridan heard my modern poetry, he would be astounded and insist to Ampora that I write "Spectacular, Spectacular." The only problem was I kept hearing my father's voice in my head, yelling, "You'll even up wasting your life at the Moulin Rouge with a can-can dancer!" **

"No!" Sollux said, running back towards the ladder leading down into his apartment via the giant hole. "I can't write the show for the Moulin Rouge!" He was already on it when Aradia, Kankri, Karkat and Tavros.

"Why not?" Aradia asked. For the first time, she wasn't grinning. Her grin was replaced with a pout of pure disappointment.

"I…" Sollux struggled. "I don't even know if I am a true Bohemian Revolutionary!"

"Do you believe in beauty?" Aradia asked.

"Yes."

Tavros spoke up. "Uh, freedom?"

"Yes," Sollux said, nodding.

"Truth?" Kankri asked.

"Yes, of course!"

"Love?" Tavros asked again.

Sollux stopped. Blinked once. Twice. "Love? Love… Above all things, I believe in love. Love is like… oxygen! Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!" He could feel the grin on his face, and soon Aradia was grinning too as she said, "See, you can't fool us! You're the voice of the Children of the Revolution!"

"We can't be fooled," Karkat said.

"Let's drink to the new writer of the world's first Bohemian Revolutionary show!" She said, pouring everyone a glass of her weird substance.

**It was a fantastic plan. I would audition for Eridan, and I would have my first taste of Absinthe.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys. This chapter is pretty short, sorry. It's just kind of the drunk bit. Next chapter, we go to the Moulin Rouge! Enjoy these fellows getting drunk. **

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_There was a boy_

Sollux was more than a bit tipsy as he continued to drink the strange green elixir, and as he looked at the bottle of absinthe, he swore he saw the Red Fairy jump up off of it. Aradia hung off Sollux's shoulder as she grumbled, "That looks like my sister Damara!"

The Red Fairy seemed to lean forward and tap Sollux on the nose, making Aradia cackle. Tavros, Kankri and Karkat seemed to have seen it too, because they soon started laughing and singing, "_The hills are alive with the sound of music!_"

_A very strange enchanted boy…_

The fairy danced, shaking her body in ways that made Sollux's tingle as he tried to support Aradia, who could barely stand next to him. Karkat and Kankri had each claimed one of Tavros's shoulders, and the man didn't mind as all five of them seemed to stare at the fairy as she danced for them. Cackles and snorts were heard in the air with the occasional pop of a cork as Aradia opened up another bottle, and then another, and then another!

"_For freedom, beauty, truth and love!_" They sang from the rooftops. "_You can't fool the Children of the Revolution! No you can't fool the Children of the Revolution!"_

_"The hills are alive with the sound of music!"_ The Red Fairy chorused.

Sollux swayed with the Bohemians, alcohol flooding his system and rendering his mind almost useless. He laughed and sang with his newfound friends, glasses of absinthe constantly in his hand and never empty.

**We were off to the Moulin Rouge, and I was to perform my poetry for Eridan.**

"_The hills are alive!" _Sollux practically belted off the roof, falling back before he was out like a light.


End file.
